Italy confirms two hostages freed from IS in Libya

Italy's foreign ministry confirmed on Friday the release of two Italians kidnapped in Libya in July, adding that they were in good health.

The ministry "confirms that the two Italians kidnapped in Libya in July, Filippo Calcagno and Gino Pollicardo, technicians of the Bonatti company, are no longer in the hands of their captors," it said a statement.

"They are now under the protection of the Sabratha military council and are in good health," it added.

The mayor of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, initially broke the news of the two men's release, after an operation targeted local Islamic State (IS) group militants.

"Two Italian hostages were released... in Sabratha after an operation targeting several houses after information reached security forces that Daesh elements were there," the city's mayor Hussein al-Dawadi said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Dawadi said the two men were being held at a police station in Sabratha, 70 kilometres east of Tripoli.

Pollicardo, 55, and Calcagno, 65, were kidnapped along with two other employees of the Italian construction company near a complex of the Italian oil company ENI in the Mellitah region west of Tripoli, an area known for kidnappings.

The two men said in a statement released by the Sabratha municipality: "We are free and are relatively well physically but are psychologically exhausted. We urgently need to return to Italy."

Pollicardo's tearful wife told Italian media: "It's over, I spoke to him on the phone."

On Thursday the Italian foreign ministry announced that the two other hostages, Fausto Piano and Salvatore Failla, had likely been killed in clashes between IS fighters and local militia fighters near Sabratha.

Rome's prosecution office, which is investigating the kidnapping, said Fausto Piano and Salvatore Failla had been separated from Pollicardo and Calcagno.

Sabratha has been the scene of intense fighting between local militias and IS since a US attack last month on an IS training camp on the outskirts of the city that left 50 people dead, including a kidnapped Serbian diplomat and her driver.

IS subsequently seized control of the centre of the city only to be pushed back to the outskirts last week.